Unmasked questions

Delhi police's variable responses require explanation

Two decisions by the Delhi police roughly three weeks apart raise serious questions. On December 15, during a protest against the Citizens’ Amendment Act that spilled over to the students of Jamia Millia Islamia, the Delhi police chose to exercise great zeal in pursuing miscreants, who were not students, into the campus. They proceeded to beat up students indiscriminately, fire tear gas shells in the library, and even storm the women’s hostel. But on January 5, they failed to display similar zeal when a masked mob armed with sticks, bottles, and iron rods rampaged through Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) for three hours, perpetrating roughly the same sort of havoc that the police wrought in Jamia Millia. Some 40 people were injured, and the JNU students’ union president sustained a head injury as did a senior professor. This time, the police chose to remain inactive outside the university gates even as chilling CCTV footage showed goons striding into campus untouched and exiting unhindered some hours later. The attackers also prevented ambulances from entering the campus, to no noticeable reaction from the police. The explanation that the police had learnt from the Jamia Millia controversy and chose not to enter the campus suo motu does not wash. They were stationed at the campus in the first place at the express request of the university administration to quell a fracas that had broken out that afternoon between rival unions over a fee hike announced late last year. So it is unclear why they did not exercise their core function and intervene to stop manifest lawlessness.

Inevitably, questions have arisen over the identity of the masked mobsters, an issue that has been linked to the Delhi police’s inactivity. The Delhi police come under the Union home ministry. So the inference drawn from their curious inertness is that they were under orders to stand aside because the attackers were members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). The fact that the streetlights were switched off ahead of the attack has strengthened these suspicions. This is the same method of operation the police used when they lathi-charged JNU students protesting fee hikes in November last year. To be sure, this police-ABVP link is still in the realm of circumstantial evidence. The home ministry has asked the lieutenant governor, the constitutional head of Delhi, to investigate and his report should, hopefully, explain the variable response of the Delhi police, among other things.  

The expected political blame game that has broken out obscures the bigger question about the credibility of those institutions that are responsible for citizens’ security and safety. From the law courts to the police, it is vital that taxpayer-funded citizen-facing institutions discharge their duties with impartiality. A police force in Delhi that is seen to align its actions to the party in power at the Centre for political ends imparts a strong degree of legitimacy to an egregious trend that is rampant in almost every state administration in India. In the long run, as Uttar Pradesh has demonstrated, the institutional weakness of those responsible for upholding the law is unlikely to make India a desirable destination for investors, whether domestic or foreign. In the process, India’s economic development becomes a casualty.